Sluys

“ Catharine looked after him from the window as he walked rapidly away in the gathering twilight. Her accustomed ears scarcely heeded the sullen booming of the great guns, or the dropping shots of muskets from the ramparts. The life of the town went on with a curious quietude in the midst of warlike strife; notwithstanding the fact that it became daily more and more evident that without substantial succour in men, and munitions, and food, Sluys could not hold out against such overmastering odds. ”

“ MONMOUTH, ROBERT CAREY, 1st Earl of (c. 1560–1639) , youngest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, Chamberlain and first cousin of Queen Elizabeth, by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Morgan, of Arkestone in Herefordshire, was born about the year 1560. As a young man he accompanied several diplomatic missions abroad and took part in military expeditions. In 1587 he joined in the attempt to relieve Sluys, in 1588 served as a volunteer against the Spanish expedition, and commanded a regiment in Essex’s expedition to Normandy in 1591, taking part in the siege of Rouen. ”

“ Yes; his father, Van Buren Sluysdael, died, you know—a year after they left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny, except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a separate income, even as a boy. ”

“ There's a Siwash in your cabin,” said Captain. “What is he doing there?”
“Dat's all right,” rejoined Klusky. “I told him to stay and vatch things.”
“Rather strange,” thought the other. “I wonder what there is to watch. There's never been any stealing around here.”
To the unversed, a march by sled would seem simplicity. In reality there is no more discouraging test than to hit the trail, dogless and by strength of back. The human biped can not drag across the snow for any distance more than its own weight; hence equipment is of the simplest. ”

“ As soon as I could leave Sweetwater I went to the city, three hundred miles away, where Miss Sylvia lived. I found her in her library, in her black silk dress and heliotrope shawl, knitting up cream wool, for all the world as if she had just been transplanted from the veranda corner of Harbour Light. ”

“ The thought of one day living on Slough Farm and being his own master there, was infinitely pleasant to him. In twenty years, he sometimes calculated, he would easily double his wealth; he would show the whole district what farming could bring in. One plan after the other rose before him—how to go about it, all the things he would do, what the pastor would say when he published the banns, what the people in his home district would say when some day he would come along with his own horse and wagon and it would be noised around that he had six horses in his stable and ten of the finest cows. ”

“ Many such old people set out betimes, on the Sunday afternoon to which Sylvia had been so looking forward, to scale the long flights of stone steps—worn by the feet of many generations—which led up to the parish church, placed on a height above the town, on a great green area at the summit of the cliff, which was the angle where the river and the sea met, and so overlooking both the busy crowded little town, the port, the shipping, and the bar on the one hand, and the wide illimitable tranquil sea on the other—types of life and eternity. ”

“ There the women would have chocolate and hot waffles, and discuss the new camblets and shoes just arrived from England, and to be bought at Jacob Kip's store; and the men would have a pipe of Virginia and a glass of hot Hollands, and fight over again the quarrel pending between the governor and the Assembly.
"Men can bear all things but good days," said Peter Sluyter, when they had gone a dozen yards in silence; "since Van Heemskirk has a seat in the council-room, it is a long way to his hat."
"Come, now, he was very civil, Sluyter. He bows like a man not used to make a low bow, that is all." ”

“ Old Slugs was a bulldog to fight, and, for that reason, the watchers were confident that he would be the victor in the end. For all that the stranger rained blow after blow upon the wiper’s face and body, Slugs continued the fight as if he had not been hit. ”

“ Sylvia said to herself that she would turn homewards when she came within sight of this cove,—Headlington Cove, they called it. All the way along she had met no one since she had left the town, but just as she had got over the last stile, or ladder of stepping-stones, into the field from which the path descended, she came upon a number of people—quite a crowd, in fact; men moving forward in a steady line, hauling at a rope, a chain, or something of that kind; boys, children, and women holding babies in their arms, as if all were fain to come out and partake in some general interest. ”

“ To Sylvia the sudden change into brightness and bustle occasioned by the entrance of her father and the specksioneer was like that which you may effect any winter's night, when you come into a room where a great lump of coal lies hot and slumbering on the fire; just break it up with a judicious blow from the poker, and the room, late so dark, and dusk, and lone, is full of life, and light, and warmth. ”

“ Horton and Mrs. Platts anxiously watching the two standing on the vessel’s deck saw them strike the water and then all hope was lost. They buried their faces in their hands to shut out the very thought of the terrible sight.
But see! what is that? Each eye is strained to catch the sight.
Their hearts almost stand still as they watch two heads above the water, and as they near the island they are soon followed by Zula, who smiles as she steps on the shore. Guy soon follows, and brushes the water from his hair. ”

“ If the artist had been also a portrait painter, it would have been well to have secured a sketch of the present keeper of the Sluice-house; his manly mien, and mild expressive face, are worthy of the pencil: if there be truth in physiognomy, he is an honest, good-hearted man. His dame, who tenders Barcelona nuts and oranges at the Sluice-house door for sale, with fishing-lines from two-pence to six-pence, and rods at a penny each, is somewhat stricken in years, and wholly innocent of the metropolis and its manners. ”

“ The last boat is nearly filled and all have descended with the exception of Guy and Zula. How fast they crowd to their places; these frightened people, seemingly so selfish because life is at stake. Guy and Zula hold back. ”

“ By the memory of all you hold dear, tell me!'
'George, my dear,' said Saul, in a broken voice, 'a few moments after I quitted Mr. Million's house, I saw her enter it.'
A long, long silence followed. The stars and the moon shone brightly, but there was no light in the heavens for George. A sob broke from him, and another, and another.
'For God's sake,' exclaimed Saul, 'for your mother's sake, who suffers now a grief as keen as yours, bear up! Dear friend, if I could lay down my life for you, I would!'
'I know it. You alone, and my mother, are true; all the rest of the world is false! ”

“ Saul had five times as many men as David, so nobody was afraid. They did not take even the common precaution of a guard to keep awake and watch. Saul slept, and his uncle Abner the captain slept, and all the soldiers slept, in the shelter of the rocks and under the thick bushes. And the moon came out and looked upon Saul’s camp, and there they lay, all the three thousand, sound asleep, while a single spark of light reflected from the sky shone on the tip of the spear which showed where the king lay beneath. ”

“ Away goes the heavily laden boat, and faster and yet faster, down—down goes the sinking vessel. The deck but just clears the water, and there stand Guy and Zula waiting, with but a moment between them and death. How calmly they wait. Guy clasps her hand, his face has grown pale. ”

“ The sun with its rising beams, put to flight this idle memory, leaving only the rosy features of Sylvie. "I will go and awaken her," I said to myself, and again I started in the direction of Loisy.
Ah, here at the end of the forest track, is the village, twenty cottages whose walls are festooned with creepers and climbing roses. A group of women, with red kerchiefs on their heads, are spinning in the early light, in front of a farmhouse, but Sylvie is not among them. She is almost a young lady, now she makes dainty lace, but her family remain simple villagers. ”

“ The seam was long, straight, and monotonous, and Sally was restless and fidgety; her thread would catch in knots, and when she tried to loosen it, would break, and the needle had to be threaded over. Somehow the work was terribly irksome to her, and the house looked so still and dim and lonesome, and the tick-tock of the kitchen-clock was insufferable, and Sally let her work fall in her lap and looked out of the open window, [Pg 309] far to the open ocean, where a fresh breeze was blowing toward her, and her eyes grew deep and dreamy following the gliding ship sails. ”

“ When I meet this Leesy Sullivan, whom I have not yet seen, you remember, I want a long talk with her. The last object I have is to frighten her; I shall seek to soothe her instead. If I can once meet her face to face, and voice to voice, I believe I can tame the antelope, or the lioness, whichever she turns out to be. I do not think I shall have to coerce her—not even if she is guilty. If she is guilty she will give herself up. I may even take her home to dinner with us,” he added, with a smile. “Don’t shudder, Mr. Redfield ”

“ As the music entered my thoughts, I remembered suddenly the box of sweet alyssum blooming on the window-sill under the swinging cage, and there flashed into my consciousness the meaning of the flowers George had laid beside Sally's plate. For her sake he had gone to Miss Mitty in the sad old house, and that little blossom was the mute expression of a service he had rendered joyfully in the name of love. The gratitude in Sally's eyes was made clear to me, and a helpless rage at my own blindness, my own denseness, flooded my heart. ”

“ Beyond them, and beyond the amber satin curtains at the long window, I saw the elm boughs arching against a pale gold sunset into which a single swallow was flying. And I remember that swallow as I remember the look, swift, expectant, as if it, also, were flying, that trembled, for an instant, on Sally's face.
"It is George," she said, turning to me with radiant eyes; "George has done this. These are the things he bought, and I wondered so what he would do with them." Then before something in my face, the radiance died out of her eyes. "Would you rather he didn't do it? ”

“ The last occasion on which we hear of the spear of Saul is one of singular interest. Before us rises the hill of Hachilah, with the dark shroud of night around it, where Saul the king and his chosen thousands lie stretched in deepest sleep. The spear of the slumbering monarch is stuck into the ground close to his pillow. We almost wonder that Saul with a conscience so stained by guilt, he being at the time actually engaged in an attempt to hunt David to the death, can sleep so soundly. ”

“ The boat tipped and the water rushed over one side, but Sylvia, clutching the oars steadily, and remembering her father's frequent warnings, sat perfectly still and the little craft righted itself.
"You nearly upset us; keep still where you are. Don't move!" said Sylvia angrily. The light had flashed in another direction now, and the guard-boat had moved on, thinking the boat contained two young darkies bound for Sullivan's Island after a visit to Charleston. ”

“ George gives his friend the ticket, and the next day Saul bids good-bye to the land which holds all that is dear to his heart.'
The man in possession pauses here, and old Ben Sparrow gazes earnestly at him. When he resumes, his voice grows more solemn.
'Saul reaches his destination, and after much wandering finds a shelter in the mountains with a little colony of gold-diggers. He makes a friend there; David. Another; David's wife. God rest their souls! Another; David's little daughter. Saul finds gold, and thanks God for His goodness. ”

“ A journey on foot of sixty-eight miles, undertaken in a Swan River summer and with long tracts of deep sand to be waded through, required five days to accomplish; the first of which was sufficient to give the pedestrians an appearance so dusty and travel-stained that, as Father Salvado says, they might have been mistaken for the savages whom they were hoping to convert. The party reached Captain Scully's house in safety, and having remained there three days to recruit both men and oxen, they again went forward, in a northerly direction, under the guidance of his two servants. ”

“ The next morning the Sullivan family rose to witness another weary and dismal day of incessant rain, and to partake of a breakfast of thin stirabout, made and served up with that woful ingenuity, which necessity, the mother of invention in periods of scarcity, as well as in matters of a different character, had made known to the benevolent hearted wife of Jerry Sullivan. ”

“ A homeless dog or two, panting from thirst, lay in the gutter; otherwise there was not a sound, not a living thing, from end to end of the long dusty street.
For two hours I walked up and down there, entering the house from time to time to see if Sally needed me, or if she had moved. Then, as the light broke feebly, the doctor came, and we went in together. Sally was still sitting there, as she had sat all night, rigid in the dim glow of the lamp, and over her Aunt Euphronasia still waved the palm-leaf fan with its black, flitting shadow. ”